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Based solely on his actions and not onwhat he says, it would seem PresidentObama hates fossil fuels—even to the

point of recklessly endangering the U.S.economy and all Americans. In spite of whathe claimed in his March 11 and 31 news con-ferences, Obama has blocked every effort todevelop domestic coal, oil and natural gasthat would assure a stable, cheap supply ofenergy for America.

This shouldn’t be a surprise. CandidateObama warned us in an interview with theSan Francisco Chronicle in January 2008.“Sure, if somebody wants to build a coal-fired power plant, they can,” he said, as if hewere discussing the weather. “It’s just that itwill bankrupt them because they are gonnabe charged a huge sum for all that green-house gas that’s being emitted.” He thencasually admitted to the Chronicle, “Undermy plan of a cap-and-trade system, electrici-ty rates would necessarily skyrocket.”

When Obama’s cap-and-trade legislationdid not pass the Senate in 2010, Lisa Jackson,EPA administrator, announced draconiannew carbon emission regulations on Decem-ber 21. Promulgated under the allegedauthority of the Clean Air Act, the blizzard ofnew EPA regulations focused on controllingenergy production from oil refineries andcoal/natural gas power plants.

As part of a $64 billion cut to the federalbudget, the new Republican Congressattempted in February to derail the EPA’seffort by defunding that part of the agency’sbudget needed to implement the regulations.To no one’s surprise, the legislation failed topass the Senate in early March by 16 votes. ADemocrat-sponsored bill having only $4 bil-lion in spending cuts also failed to pass by aneven wider margin. The enormous schismbetween Republican and Democratic bud-gets merely defined the beginning of thegridlock that now grips Congress. Neitherparty seems to be able to come to grips with

the $14 trillion-plus national debt or the $3trillion-plus deficit for fiscal years 2011-2012.

Putting the United States on a fast trackto become energy independent is criticallyimportant in balancing the budget. The oilwe purchase from other nations is rapidlyapproaching $500 billion a year. It is simplythe greatest transfer of wealth in the historyof mankind. In the process, this money fundsthe war chests of many of our enemies.Developing our own enormous oil, naturalgas and coal deposits to become self-suffi-cient is a no-brainer. Yet, our leaders aredoing just the opposite.

Derail Coal, Offshore Drilling and Shale Oil Development

The Obama administration blindsided thecoal industry this year on January 16 whenthe EPA took the unprecedented action of

revoking a “mountaintop” mining permit.The permit was issued years ago to ArchCoal’s Spruce No. 1 Mine in Logan County,W.V. This type of mining removes a moun-taintop to access the underlying coal strata.Not surprisingly, unions want it bannedbecause it requires fewer men than requiredin underground soft-rock mining.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) made amost perceptive statement by warning, “Thisaction not only affects this specific permit,but needlessly throws other permits into asea of uncertainty at a time of great econom-ic distress.” Indeed, the action throws a cloudover dozens of similar permits and puts teethto Obama’s campaign statement that hewould “bankrupt” the coal industry—at leastmountaintop mining.

Former governor and newly elected Sen.Joe Manchin (D-WV) seems to see the dan-gers of agenda-driven energy policies.“According to the EPA,” Manchin wrote, “itdoesn’t matter if you did everything right, ifyou followed all of the rules. Why? They justchange the rules.” The economy of theAppalachians and multiple thousands of

Obama’s All-Out WarBy Michael Coffman, Ph.D.

President Obama’s cap-and-trade policy is systematically blockingevery effort to develop domestic supplies of oil. It threatens the eco-nomic foundation of America and has become the major nationalsecurity issue of the 21st century.

The EPA pulled the operating permit for Arch Coal’s Spruce No. 1 Mine years after issuing it, calling intoquestion many other similar permits and giving teeth to Obama’s 2008 declaration that he wouldbankrupt the coal industry.

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similar jobs are at stake.Therein lies the danger of the EPA and

the administration’s war on fossil fuels. Acareful analysis of its strategies clearly showsa pattern of constant chipping away at con-stitutional limitations of federal powerthrough the systematic changing of regula-tions without congressional oversight, just asManchin wrote.

The deliberate destruction of the coalindustry is but one example of throwing cer-tain classes of American citizens under thebus. During the height of the BP deepwateroil spill, the Obama administration put amoratorium on all offshore drilling. The fol-lowing month, the May 2010 moratoriumwas struck down by U.S. District Judge Mar-tin Feldman. That didn’t stop the Obamaadministration, however. It continued themoratorium on deepwater drilling in spite ofthe court order.

Although the Obama administration lift-ed the moratorium on shallow well drilling(less than 500 feet deep), its action was mean-ingless. Despite an outstanding safety recordfor shallow drilling, the administration basi-cally stonewalled issuing permits by forcingdrillers to go through a maze of newly con-cocted “safety” regulations. This not onlygreatly lengthened the permitting processfrom two weeks to nine months, but alsoadded about $90,000 in costs—somethingsmaller operators cannot afford. The netresult is that the Obama administration putthousands of people out of work at the sametime it claims to be saving millions of jobs.

But that’s not all. Simple economicsforced deepwater drilling companies to movetheir rigs to other places in the world follow-ing the moratorium. By doing so, it makes itvery difficult and expensive to get the rigsback to resume any deepwater drilling in theGulf—even at depths that have an excellentsafety record.

One of these deepwater rigs was con-tracted by the Brazilian company Petrobrasto drill a 14,000-foot well (the BP deepwatereffort was 11,000 feet). MultibillionaireGeorge Soros is the second-largest investor inPetrobras. Soros, in turn, is a big Obama sup-porter, contributor and advisor. Two monthsafter Soros bought the second-largest blockof shares in Petrobras, Obama made a $2 bil-lion taxpayer-backed loan guarantee toPetrobras. The point is that Obama has noaversion to deepwater drilling—at least forhis globalist supporters.

This travesty was amplified on February

2 this year when Judge Feldman ruled thatthe Obama administration acted in con-tempt by continuing its deepwater-drillingmoratorium after the policy was struckdown. Judge Feldman said the Obamaadministration acted with “determined disre-gard” to his court order. Feldman continued,“Each step the government took followingthe court’s imposition of a preliminaryinjunction showcases its defiance.” The con-tempt order worked. Since it was issued theObama administration has issued 10 deep-water permits.

Offshore drilling is not the only domesticoil production targeted for curtailment bythe Obama administration. Secretary of Inte-rior Ken Salazar has authorized the review of200 million acres of Bureau of Land Man-agement (BLM) land for consideration as“Wild Lands.” Wild Lands is a category thatdoes not have to have congressionalapproval, as does wilderness designations.[See story, page 42.] However, like wildernessdesignations, it prevents all human use. Ashappened in the Gulf States, Obama’s actionswill likely harm or even destroy the liveli-hoods of tens of thousands of ranchers, resi-dents and companies that depend on BLMland to earn a living.

That is not the worst of it, however. Dur-ing Obama’s March 11 news conference onenergy, he used selective statistics to grosslymisrepresent reality. He claimed, for instance,that the United States only had 2 percent ofthe world’s proven oil reserves. Yet, that num-ber only reflects the amount of oil where the

United States is already drilling or pumpingfor oil. Two percent only represents a verysmall percentage of the total amount of oiland natural gas reserves in the United States.The total amount is enormous.

Colorado, Utah and Wyoming haveenough oil and gas in oil shale formations tocompletely supply all U.S. needs for severalhundred years with current or developingtechnology and oil prices. The BLM esti-mates that “1.2 to 1.8 trillion barrels of oil isavailable in Wyoming’s Green River Forma-tion alone. A moderate estimate of 800 billionbarrels of oil that would be recoverable fromoil shale in the Green River Formation isthree times greater than the proven oilreserves of Saudi Arabia.” (Italics added) Thatis over a 100-year supply of oil at present U.S.consumption rates—just from Wyoming.

In spite of the enormous potential of oilshale to help the United States become ener-gy independent, Sen. Ken Salazar (D-CO)stonewalled oil shale development in Con-gress for years. Now that he is secretary of theInterior, he appears to be attempting to clas-sify oil shale areas as Wild Lands so that thesehuge oil and natural gas deposits would belocked up forever.

That’s not all, however. On Feb. 14, 2011,the administration announced it was placingyet another moratorium on all new permits.This time it is stopping permits authorizedby President Bush for developing the shaleoil/natural gas reserves. This includes thedevelopment of the oil-rich shale in Col-orado, Utah and Wyoming, with more than

The Obama administration imposed an offshore deepwater drilling moratorium in violation of a court order.This caused companies owning deepwater rigs to move them to other parts of the world, and prevents anyhope of significant drilling for many years. Given world events, the United States desperately needs that oil.

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nearly two million acres of BLM land in theGreen River Formation alone. While Presi-dent Obama told the American people dur-ing his March 11 and 31 news conferencesthat he was doing all he could to get drillingpermits processed as quickly as possible, the

truth is that he is doing exactly the opposite.The Obama Endgame

Although President Obama talks constantlyabout becoming less dependent on foreignenergy and saving jobs, he has systematicallyattempted to stop all new domestic oil pro-duction and is destroying tens of thousandsof jobs in the process. The so-called increasein domestic oil production he claimed creditfor during his news conference on energywas not the result of anything his administra-tion did. The increase was due to theincreased number of drilling permitsreleased by President Bush.

Obama seems to be creating smoke andmirrors to hide the fact he is deliberatelymaking energy prices “necessarily skyrocket.”This sentiment is also supported by Obama’ssecretary of Energy, Steven Chu, who toldThe Wall Street Journal prior to the 2008 elec-tions, “Somehow we have to figure out howto boost the price of gasoline to the levels inEurope.” By forcing energy prices higher,Obama’s very expensive alternative wind andsolar energy would seem to compete eco-nomically with the skyrocketing cost of fos-sil-fuel energy. If so, he is willing to sacrificeAmerica and its people to his incredibly

destructive green-energy policies.The Obama administration appears to be

so blinded by its green beliefs that it is appar-ently unable to deal with reality. Wind andsolar power simply cannot work. They onlyproduce about one percent of our electricity

needs today for a good reason. It is a matterof simple physics. The wind does not alwaysblow and the sun does not always shine. Toensure that wind and solar farms can pro-duce continuous and dependable energywould require unthinkable amounts of landarea.

Physicist Howard Hayden of the Univer-sity of Connecticut says: “Imagine a one-mileswath of wind turbines extending from SanFrancisco to Los Angeles. That area would berequired to produce as much power aroundthe clock as one large coal, natural gas, ornuclear power station that normally occupiesabout one square kilometer.” Solar power isinefficient with a footprint even worse thanwind. Until battery storage technology isdeveloped to allow massive amounts of ener-gy to be stored for long periods, the produc-tion of wind and solar power is nothingmore than a pipe dream. That battery tech-nology is not even on the horizon.

The infeasibility of wind and solar powerhas already been proven in Europe. Spainhas been trying cap and trade for 11 years.It’s found that each new green job costs$750,000 while losing 2.2 jobs in the regulareconomy. Most of those green jobs have

been proven to be temporary. Not only iswind power 75 percent more expensive thancoal-generated electricity, but solar powercan be 570 to 887 percent more expensive.The entire European green-energy industryis crashing. Yet, the Obama administrationhas a fairytale belief that because wind andsolar energy is the green thing to do, it willmagically work. It won’t. It can’t.

The Real DangerAs dangerous as the green ideology is, how-ever, it pales in significance to what couldhappen if the cascading unrest in the Mideastoil-producing governments expands to SaudiArabia. The unrest in the Middle East hascaused oil prices to skyrocket from $93 a bar-rel in January to $110 by mid-April 2011.Gasoline prices increased from $3.07 to $3.70during the same period, an increase of 21percent.

Libya is a minor oil producer. Saudi Ara-bia, on the other hand, is a major producer.What if Saudi Arabia becomes embroiled inrevolution like Egypt, Libya and other Mid-dle East nations? If Saudi Arabia goes down,oil prices would shoot up to over $200 a bar-rel and gas prices would top $5 a gallon. Forevery dollar a barrel that oil increases in priceover a year, roughly $100 billion is suckedfrom the U.S. economy. Most analysts believethat if gas prices top $5 a gallon, the alreadystruggling U.S. economy would go down inflames. It would make 1929’s Great Depres-sion look like a walk in the park. Nobodywants that, but the risk is real. And totallyunnecessary.

Obama is playing games with America’ssecurity and future. He is playing fast andloose with statistics to apparently deliberatelymislead the American people into acceptinghis policies. These policies have no chance ofworking within any conceivable economythat will benefit Americans. His green policiesrepresent the greatest threat to America andits national security in modern history. �

Dr. Coffman is president of EnvironmentalPerspectives Inc. (epi-us.com) and CEO ofSovereignty International (sovereignty.net) inBangor, Maine. He has had over 30 years ofuniversity teaching, research and consultingexperience in forestry and environmental sci-ences. He produced the acclaimed DVD,“Global Warming or Global Governance”(warmingdvd.com). His newest book, “Rescu-ing a Broken America” (rescuingamerica-book.com) is receiving wide acclaim. He canbe reached at 207-945-9878 ormcoffman@epi-us.com.

An example of oil shale near the surface. Many deposits are much deeper. Surface strata are usuallymined by surface mining, but cost-effective recent technology has been developed to reduce environmentaldamage and access deeper strata.

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